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Abstract(s)
This dissertation aims to study the relationship between the economic dimension of “new wars”
and the perpetuation of violence. The analysis on the economic dimension of “new wars” shows
that it is an essential aspect to understand in an interconnected and globalized setting because
there are impacts on the state-building and on the social and political spheres.
The main question of the thesis is going to analyze the main aspects of the war economy in
Kosovo. One of the hypotheses holds that in contemporary wars, the state suffers increased
levels of violence, which leads to a non-ending cycle of internal crisis, because of the economic
aspect of war. The goal is to explore this hypothesis and to analyze the nature and characteristics
of the war economy as well as, to understand how the perpetuation of violence can easily spread
on a transnational level. One of the main sources for the discussion of the “new wars” theory
are the book New & Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, 2012 by Mary Kaldor and
the book The New Wars, 2003 by Herfried Münkler. Kaldor has an extensive fieldwork
experience on the type of intrastate conflicts and analyses the main aspects of conflicts in
different parts of the world.
While Kaldor and Münkler focus on the “new wars” thesis, authors such as Philippe Le Billon
in the paper The Political Economy of War: What Relief Agencies Need to Know, 2000 provides
a better insight into the different types of war, their characteristics and challenges. Finally,
authors such as Francesco Stratazzi in the article with the tittle Between ethnic collision and
mafia collusion, 2006 and Jenny H. Peterson, in the article with the title Transforming a war
economy, 2014 provide an even more detailed analysis of the economic aspects of the conflict
in the Balkan region and in relation to the case on Kosovo’s war economy.
The dissertation is divided into three chapters. The first chapter examines the nature of the
“new wars” based on a qualitative research of the central authors on the topic. The second
chapter analyses the political economy of weak states and the causes for the perpetuation of
violence. In the third chapter, the case study on the Kosovo war economy is discussed and
analyzed to better understand the theoretical aspects of the economy of the war in the case of
Kosovo. The main goal of our thesis is to study the related causes of the economic dimension
of these types of war and to understand how the awareness of war economy can help to take
measures to prevent violent conflict and perpetuation of war.